Yeah, like my sweetie Heather mentioned, I dragged myself out of bed after about an hour of sleep at midnight to head over to my local GameStop to pick up my reserved copies of Halo 2. Actually, these are two of the four copies that I somehow managed to reserve. Here’s the timeline breakdown (If it’s boring, feel free to skip down to the second set of “—”s):
—
Last year before the Babbages in the Citadel Mall changed their name to GameStop I reserved a copy of Halo 2 because it was “said” that it would be out early 2004. Apparently not said by Bungie or Microsoft though since it kept getting delayed (June, Early Summer, Early Fall, Sometime Fall, finally “officially” November 9). It kinda reminds me of the new computers we’re supposed to have here at work by now. Anyway.
Earlier this year I reserved another copy at Game Crazy (affiliated with Hollywood Video) so that my brother could participate in a Halo competition. I figured no biggie, he could pay for that copy and then he would be set. If he won he would be getting a free copy of Halo 2. He did not win.
Around July or August a brand new GameStop opened about a mile or so from my house and we (me, my brother, my son and daughter) were in there checking things out when Trevor pointed out the sample case of the Limited Edition of Halo 2 that was going to be available. I had recently purchased an additional XBox so that we could play system linked games and thought it would be a good idea to reserve one of those Limited Edition versions and then, rather than run all across town on release date to get them both, I reserved a regular version as well. I figured I would just transfer the credit from the one I had at the first GameStop to something else. But I never got around to it.
A few weeks ago one of the AEs expressed an interest in paying me for the game and using my unclaimed reserve when it was released. Sounded good to me.
This past weekend I made arrangements at Game Crazy for Trevor to be able to pick up the game there without me having to be with him. Then when I called him later I was told that he had gone ahead and payed off his own reserve at the FIRST GameStop where my original reservation was, and didn’t bother to tell me. So now I’m back to one extra on reserve that I won’t be getting. I considered scalping it, but nah. It’s not worth it to me.
—
And that’s where things were when I dragged myself from my bed at the earliest hour of this morning. I realized when I was about half way there that I was really not awake enough to drive. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic. Or people. Or other stuff that would go *dent!*
When I was stopped at the traffic light that leads into the mall area where the store was the driver of an old, primer gray colored Chevrolet Ugly was screaming at the top of his lungs, “YES! YES! YES!” and waving his copy of the game out his window. That was amusing. And I could see from where I sat that there was a bit of a line.
It turns out there were two lines. One for the people who only reserved with the minimum $5 (that’s me) and one for the people who paid it off in advance. There were about 35-40 people waiting in the $5 line and the advance line was two to three times longer. Lots-o-people. I took my place in the $5 line and waited. They were letting about 5 people from my line in at a time and 5 from the other. It was all very orderly.
Two people soon lined up behind me. One of them was a drunk motorcyclist who turned out to be an interesting person and the other was a guy who came with a friend and was hoping there would be an extra copy that he could purchase. HAH. Poor guy. We told him that it was highly unlikely but he decided to try anyway.
After about 30 minutes of waiting the doorman cut off our line from entering right at me. So there was me, the two guys behind me, and about 50 people (I’m guessing because the end of the line wrapped around the building) in the other line. I was thinking, “Why? Why not just let us three in and then you will be down to one line? Arrgh.”
Some blonde chick took this opportunity to come up to the doorman and ask why their line was so long and ours was so short. That’s how riots start, dummy. Fortunately the door guy handled it well, my drunk line member pointed out that our line would be gone soon, a motorcycle cop walked up and made his shiny bald headed presence known and she went back to her spot in line all grumbly like.
While waiting for the doorman to realize, “Hey, I can eliminate this line by being less of an ass and a tinch more clever!” I looked in the window and noticed a DVD set of CSI on their used DVD shelf. After I was long out of there… so long in fact that I didn’t think of it until I talked to Heather this morning… I thought it would have been very funny to have gone straight to the CSI set to see what season it was before heading to the counter to get the game. Especially with so many people outside DYING to get in there. heheh. But no. Once we were in I went straight to the middle cashier, got my games, paid and left.
They even had a photographer taking photos of people as they came in. Good thing I looked all sharp and stuff. I *think* I was fully dressed. I *know* my hair was everywhere. I didn’t fall or drool. All good.
Then I drove home and went to bed. I got up about five hours later and came to work. That’s right. I still haven’t played the game that I’ve been waiting so long to play. I knew that if I popped it in and even so much as LOOKED at the opening movie, that would be it. I would not have gone back to bed. I would not have come in to work. I would not have eaten until sometime… later. I know myself that well at least.
So why did I get up at midnight to go wait in line for (with travel time) 43 minutes when I really love my sleep and wouldn’t be laying the game until later tonight? A couple of reasons.
One, to see the spectacle first hand. It was cool. It wasn’t just kids. I saw adults much older than me in line with a similar look on their faces. The look that says “nngnngngggg! so…hard…to….WAIT!” And there were teens as well, of course, passing around bongs, doing shooters, showing their tits, rubbing the bald cop’s head. Okay, I kid. Mostly they were talking about how stoked they were to be getting the game finally. Some were smoking… cigarettes. I’m sure they were just cigarettes. I mean there was a bald cop there. You don’t mess with bald cops after midnight.
I’m reasonably sure that I am the only person who was in that line that went where he was supposed to later in the morning.
And the second reason was because of my son. He’s about to pop with anticipation. He’s been waiting nearly 1/5th of his life for this game to finally come out, as opposed to my 1/18th. But in spite of that he did have to go to school this morning. I made it clear that if he didn’t he wouldn’t play at all today. And this way he doesn’t have to wait for me to get home after work and after going to the game store before he can tear into it.
So, that’s my rambling account of my early morning adventure. Sorry if it’s stupidly long. I’m tired and what little editing skills I have are still sleeping. I don’t want to wake them because they look so darned cute.
I’m so tired.
I can’t wait to play.
My brother is skipping school the rest of the week so he can play. *derogatory-bad-word-inspired-by-jealousy here*
I’m soooo tired.
I will be in to work tomorrow. Mainly because if I’m not, and am not actually hospitalized or dead, people will ASSUME it’s because I’m playing Halo 2. That and I have a good, strong work ethic, of course.
*sigh*
Being an adult sucks.
—
How big is Halo 2?
